After removing the most controversial part of the ordinance, the Creve Coeur Village Board will vote Wednesday to change the village’s water and sewer billing structure and to require all water customers to have a water meter.

The creation of an ordinance that will change how the village bills for water and sewer usage has been a hard birth, and the process did not get any easier June 18 when the Water and Sewer Committee met to hash out the lingering problems that have been delaying passage of the ordinance. The full Village Board had tabled a vote on the ordinance at its June 11 meeting when trustees could not agree on a provision that would have instituted a 3 percent annual increase to the proposed rates.

At the June 18 committee meeting trustees Jerry Daughters and Gene Talbot pointed out that an annual increase would harm people on fixed incomes — such as seniors on Social Security —who do not get annual benefit increases. Talbot said that the village, rather than seeking more funds from residents, should work to spend less money.

Committee Chairman Terry Koegel and trustee Norma Dison suggested that the board get rid of the annual rate increase stipulation altogether, rather than let that one divisive issue hinder the efforts to make other changes that the whole board agrees need to be made. If increases to the proposed rates need to be made in the future, then the rates can be reviewed at that time, they said.

“We can just forego the annual increase and look at it again next year,” Koegel said. “The base change is a big step that has not happened in years.”

The proposed changes would require all of the nearly 830 water residents without water meters to purchase and install a water meter by Jan. 1. The motivation for this change, according to village trustees, is that non-metered water customers use, on average, much more water than metered customers, and the bill comes out to less than the average bill for metered customers. This type of loss cannot be sustained when, according to the village’s accountant, Richard Hallam, the department is set to spend $197,000 more than it earns in fiscal year 2015.

The water department, according to numbers provided by Koegel in May, has lost $1.2 million over the course of the past five years, and there are several expensive infrastructure projects that will need to be paid for in the coming years.

Currently, non-metered customers pay $46.91 per month, which includes a $10 per month capital improvement charge. Including the capital improvement charge, metered customers pay a base rate of $39.31 per month for the first 3,000 gallons, and $3 per 1,000 gallons after that — $2 for sewer and $1 for water.

The proposed rates will be a $40 base rate that includes the capital improvement charge and $4 per every 1,000 gallons used — $2 for sewer and $2 for water. Basically, as trustee Fred Thatcher put it, there will be no freebies and everybody will pay for every gallon used.

Page 2 of 2 - If approved at the board’s meeting Wednesday, the ordinance would go into effect July 1 and customers without a meter will be charged an extra $10 per month onto their current rate until they get a meter installed.

If a customer has not installed a meter by Jan. 1, though, Koegel warned that the village could shut off that customer’s water. The board will also work out the specifics of a payment plan to help people afford the meters, which cost $195 each.